for film festivals, magazines, podcasts and other channels of cultural enlightement, like my mini-tour introductions of Cannibal Holocaust in both

Gothenburg and Stockholm for the Swedish Film Institute, is partially what I do as I preach the gospel of the alternative history of film. Being part of Stockholm's Monsters of Film Festival, I wrote a piece on Emiliano Rocha Minter's Tenemos de carne (We Are the Flesh)... which got me thinking of stuff that must of, or most likely, inspired and influenced Minter in his murky provocative decent into sex and death. Naturally, Juan López Moctezuma’s movies came to mind. More than others, Alucarda, because Alucarda is one of, if not
the best, demonic possession movie ever made. It’s creepy, disturbing, gory,
loads of fun and holds extremely high production values that all add up to make
it one of the most entertaining movies to come out of Mexico during the
seventies.

I would be wrong to slot this film
into the nunsploitation genre, even if this would seem fitting. There’s
certainly a whole lot of nuns engaging in battle with the evil forces at bay, it also takes place in an orphanage/church where daily prayers and religious
artefacts fill every scene. But there’s none of the backroom sleaze activity
from the nuns that usually characterize the nunsploitation genre going on. It’s not
the nuns that are sinful, but the unfortunate young women it focuses on, if you find taking
your kit off and falling to lesbian desires to be sinful that is. What we've got here is a good old
possession movie, where the devil corrupts the minds of young innocent women in
his quest to dominate and enslave the world, with a healthy dose of exploitation traits along the way.

The mood,
tone and atmosphere of this movie is firmly set from the very start of the
film. A young mother [Tina Romero in a double role as she later plays
the grown up Alucarda too] gives birth to a little girl who get's named
Alucarda. The child is quickly rushed off by a strange old woman, leaving the mother to face
the strange entity that's lurking in the strange crypt like place she
has chosen to give birth in…

Many
years later, Justine [Susana Kamini, who starred in all of Moctezuma’s
movies but the last one] arrives at an orphanage where Sister Angélica [Tina
French] greets her and shows Justine her new home. Justine is introduced to her
roommate Alucarda [Tina Romero again] who comes right out and gives the impression of being quite eccentric and intense as she shows Justine her
collection of secrets she’s found out in the woods surrounding the
orphanage. In reality it’s all bits of twigs, dead beetles’ and small
pebbles, but it sets her naïve character trait that will be necessary to build
the Alucarda persona. Our impression of this peculiar young
girl, is exactly the same as the other girls in the orphanage have, and we realize that Alucarda
is a loner without any real friends. Which is why she from this first meeting attaches herself to
Justine so determinately, the new girl is a clean slate and holds no
prejudice towards Alucarda.

They two
friends run out into the woods to find more secrets and run into hunchbacked
Gypsy [Claudio Brook who you may recall from Guillermo Del Toro’sCronos 1993, Robert Fuest’s satanic gem The Devil’s Rain 1975
or one of the many Luis Buñuel movies he starred in. He also held the
lead role in Moctezuma’sThe Mansion of Madness (La mansión de la
locura) 1973, and just like Romero, he too holds double roles in Alucarda, as
you soon will see.] Anyhow, the gypsy hunchback tries to sell the girls more
“Secrets”, but his secrets are much more sinister than simple woodland titbits,
and after running away from the creepy hunchback they find themselves in the
crypt, looking much like the abandoned chapel from the opening birth sequence. Filled with
adolescent curiosity they initiate a blood rite promising to be BFF’s and open
one of the graves that they find there (possibly Alucarda’s mothers?) freeing the
demonic forces that arise. The audio is ferocious, as the feeling it evokes is as if the sound producer grabbed a mike and started growling and
snarling into it right on top of the soundtrack. At first it is quite annoying,
but the longer it goes on, the more profoundly it disturbed me, getting under my skin. This trick
is used throughout the rest of the movie, acting as a haunting audio key to
indicate that satanic forces are at work and with them being overdubbed in this crude way, it's almost indicating that they are even larger than the movies
narrative.

From here
on the movie goes deep into surreal bizarro land, the dark forces are free and the possessions are rolling in like fog over a bay at night. Safely back at the
orphanage, the girls undress and engage in a blood pact, swearing to stay friends for ever, to never walk the earth with out each other, and guess who shows up to
interfere, and lure them further into the darkness? Yes it’s the hunchback.
Inducting them into the pleasures of Satanism and blood rituals the heavens
open up and blood pours from the skies. The Hunchback takes the girls with him to the gypsy camp where a full-fledged satanic ritual is in progress.
Nothing is held back as the naked participants engage in a huge orgy as Justine
and Alucarda watch on in anticipation until the horned one makes his impressive
entrance welcoming the girls into his dark world. At the same time Sister Angelica
prays for Justine, calling upon the saviour the hardest she can, crying
blood, sweating blood, levitating and begging the lord for Justine’s salvation.
And would you believe it, in some kind of synchronized dance/possession Sister
Angelica and the gypsy high priestess fight it out ever so elegantly, leaving
Sister Angelica a crying mess but successful, and the high priestess dead in a
pool of blood. The entire sequence is further propelled in surrealism as the
earlier mentioned growling and snarling on the audio is right
there adding to the visual wildness on screen.

Back at
school the girls taunt their nun teachers and recite long passages of biblical
texts only to blaspheme them and evoke the name of Beelzebub. The nuns are
terrified and call in Mother Superior [Birgitta Segerskog most probably a
Swede who I cant’ find anything more info on] who after talks with Father
Lázaro [David Silva who also starred in several Moctezuma and Alejandro
Jodorowsky movies] decides that the two girls need to be exorcised. He brings all his religious gusto to the exorcism session where the girls are tied
up to crosses and stripped bare. I've never quite understood why the
church always have to tear the clothes of the poor women going though
exorcisms, but that’s what they always do and it brings a creepy feeling
of hypocrisy as the nuns are all wrapped up in their habits whilst the poor young girls are exposed. Finally the monks get to see some skin, but you need
that nudity in there or it wouldn’t be called exploitation cinema would it.

The local
doctor, Dr. Oszek [Brook in his second part] arrives just in time to
witness Justine perish at the hands of the Father Lázaro - or is it the evil forces
that take her life as they have other plans for Justine. He damns Father Lázaro
and the church for this outrageous act, but Father Lázaro defends himself by
claiming that the girls are possessed by the devil and need to be set free,
hence drastic action is demanded. Dr. Oszek takes Alucarda and his blind
daughter out of the school and back to the safety of his own home. But have no
fear for the movie is defiantly not over yet... As Sister Angelica prays by
Justine’s body it starts to twitch, and the movie cranks it up to a higher
level as it begins the build towards the coming fifteen minutes of climax that
makes this one of the most amazing movies of cult cinema ever. Demons are fought, bathes in blood ar taken, Nuns have their throats torn out, fireballs are
thrown, Monks are engulfed in flames, crucifixes burn, Alucarda brings hell to
the ordinary world in an inferno of damnation. It’s good vs. evil in a battle
older than mankind, and it is all shown in full visual manifestations that will blow your mind.

Watching Alucarda one
could easily feel that this movie, kind of like Italian nunsploitation
flicks, is anti clerical and a clear protest against the church, exposing their sinister sides and dark secrets, but I feel that the movie
really is more for than against when it all comes around. For even though the clergy do kill Justine
(in some ways she’s all ready lost due to the possession) Father Làzaro is
right. The girls are possessed by the devil, and even the goody two shoes Dr.
Oszek joins the church in the fight against the demons once his daughter is
threatened. It’s great to see how easily we are lead on, just how easy we are to manipulate, how gullible we really are. As Moctezuma has spent time building the
characters of Justine and Alucarda as young, naïve and innocent, we obviously
take sides with them during the movie, hence directing us to root for the
antagonists if you like. Yes antagonists. Justine and Alucarda are the evil
forces of the movie. The church; Sister Angelica, Father Lázaro and Dr.
Oszek are actually the protagonists. Talk about mind-fucking your audience! It’s a wonderful trick when it works and Moctezuma
pulls it off with bravura, as we really don’t want the girls to be punished, we want
them to come out victorious against the forces of the church, we also turn our cheek to face the dark side.

Finding his inspiration in Irish
author Sheridan Le Fanu’sCarmilla text, Moctezuma and his
co writers, among them his wife Yolanda, come up with a splendid story. Moctezuma makes the source material his own in every way possible using it more as an inspiration and not a template. Although the gothic
setting is preserved, the vampire element of Carmilla is abandoned;
keeping the core - yearning for companionship and the extent you will go to for
this camaraderie. Not forgetting the controversial, at least in 1872 when Fanu
wrote it, homoeroticism, especially the lesbian girl on girl elements. Exploring
daring themes and using them in your text isn’t simply a ploy of seventies -
eighties exploitation cinema; it’s been used since mankind started putting
words on paper, and for some unexplained reason it provokes the heck out of
certain people. Justine's name is also a reference to De Sade’sJustine
text, where the themes of good and evil, opposing oneself against the accepted
traditions, the corruption of the church and a young woman's coming of age, are
key elements.

Alucarda is a fascinating movie, the acting
is splendid, the story is highly entertaining, Xavier Cruz's
cinematography is marvellous, the compositions are magnificent. At some times
it’s almost like watching a theatrical presentation of the material. The movie
is disturbing in many ways, one of the most effective is reminiscent of Tobe
Hooper’s 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and that’s the
deafening audio track, screaming girls and growling demons make up a truly
disturbing soundtrack. It’s a bold and innovative gamble that the sound crew
and editors have taken, but in it’s own strange way it works in favour of the
movie. Romero and Kamini scream as if their lives really where on
the line, and the demonic growling placed up front make it impossible to escape
the threat presented.

I'm quite sure that the reason why the movie feels theatrical is because of Moctezuma’s background in theatre and radio. After working with radio, creating Panoama de Jazz in
1959, a show which aired for almost 35 years, Moctezuma set his eyes on
the area that had always inspired and enticed him, Cinema. His road there went
via several TV shows, a number of short movies and his assistant work with
theatre legend Seki Sano.

Seki Sano was an exiled Japanese director and
writer of theatre who spent time in prison after being accused of spreading
socialist ideas through his work. Sano spent some years in the then USSR
where he associated and worked with the likes of Stanislavski and Meyerhold,
before moving on to America. But even there his “radical and socialist” ideas
where criticized and he ventured further south ending up in Mexico during 1939.
Here he would become somewhat of a key figure for the next generation of
belligerent players on the Mexican scene. It is probably during his time as an
assistant to Sano that Moctezuma picked up his method of writing,
acting, directing and the theatrical grandeur that comes with his movies. It's
also during this time that he befriended the Chilean multiartist and creative
shaman Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Teaming
up with his new friend Jodorowsky, Moctezuma worked with him on Fando
y lis 1967 and the midnight classic El Topo 1970. He received producer credits on both. It was merely a question of time before Moctezuma would direct his own full length feature, and in 1973 he wrote
and directed The Mansion of Madness loosely based on Edgar Allen
Poe’sThe System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether. Just like
Jodorowsky, Moctezuma regarded his art passionately and held it close to
himself on a personal level which saw him refuse compromising with his
principles and, again just like Jodorowsky, become quite rigid in his filmmaking, which is
one of the reasons why he only directed a handfull movies during his career. It’s
all about quality and not quantity for visual directors of Mocetezuma's
stature.

But those
five movies he left us with still hold up as the surreal art house horror crossovers that
they where intended to be. Themes, style and elements of the fantastic played
for real in some of the most fascinating movies you will ever see... Alucarda being at the top of the class!

NOW IF WE ONLY COULD GET IT ON BLURAY SO WE CAN MELT OUR BRAINS WITH SOME MAGNIFICENT MEXICAN PSYCHOTRONICA IN H.D., EVERYTHING WOULD BE GREAT!

Image:

Full
screen 4:3, which presumably is the OAR.

Audio:

Dolby
Digital Stereo with English or Spanish dialogue options.

Extras:

Juan
Lopez Moctezuma – A Cultured Maverick: A short documentary on the director and his movies,
Theatrical Trailer, a gallery of stills and photos. Interview with Guillermo
del Toro on the legacy of Moctezuma. There’s also a text interview
with Moctezuma and cast and crew biographies.